THE six leading senatorial candidates have maintained their positions in the May 9 race with 80 percent of the canvassing already completed by the Commission on Elections (Comelec), sitting as the National Board of Canvassers (NBOC).
Based on the National Tally Sheet Report No. 4 released Sunday, actor Robin Padilla remained at number 1 with 25,856,168 votes, followed by Antique Rep. Loren Legarda with 23,614,960 votes, and broadcaster Raffy Tulfo with 22,801,648 votes.
Reelectionist Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian (20,052,418), Sorsogon Gov. Chiz Escudero (19,784,560), and former public works secretary Mark Villar (18,927,520) complete the top six.
The rankings of the top 6 are similar to their spots from the last partial and official tally of the NBOC released last Friday.
Occupying the 7th to 9th spots are Taguig Rep. Alan Peter Cayetano (18,743,575), and Senators Miguel Zubiri (18,153,807) and Joel Villanueva (18,058,632).
Also included in the Magic 12 are former senator JV Ejercito (15,428,651), Sen. Risa Hontiveros (15,016,708), and former senator Jinggoy Estrada (14,693,932).
Just outside the winners’ circle are former vice president Jejomar Binay (12,972,443), former Quezon City mayor Herbert Bautista (12,737,831), and former defense secretary Gilbert Teodoro (12,354,764).
PARTY LISTS
Meanwhile, the party-list race remains dominated by the ACT-CIS party list as it has already amassed 2,065,408 votes.
Far behind the topnotcher are the 1-Rider Party-list (988,435), Tingog (871,237), 4Ps (822,347), Ako Bicol (812,620), Sagip (769,485), Ang Probinsiyano (697,070), Uswag Ilonggo (687,481), Tutok to Win (669,218), and Cibac (628,078).
Holding the 11th to 20th spots are Seniors Citizens (598,985), Duterte Youth (575,717), Agimat (569,403), Kabataan (526,815), Marino (484,572), Ako Bisaya (474,444), Probinsiyano Ako (464,245), Abante Pangasinan-Ilokano Party (450,350), LPGMA (447,687), and Gabriela (413,901).
The numbers cover 149 out of the expected 173 Certificates of Canvass (COCs) to be canvassed by the NBOC.
These COCs cover a total of 65,246,433 registered voters. However, the total number of voters who voted was only 54,192,824, or a voter turnout of 83.05 percent.
On Sunday, the NBOC canvassed 10 additional COCs to bring the total canvassed COCs to 159, leaving only 14 COCs to be canvassed by the NBOC.
These include those manually prepared COCs from Bangladesh, Myanmar, Timor-Leste, Czech Republic, Denmark, Norway, Vatican City, Iran, Kenya, Nigeria, Mexico, and the 63 barangays in North Cotabato; as well as the electronically prepared COCs of Lanao del Sur, and Hong Kong.
PROCLAMATION
Acting Comelec Spokesman John Rex Laudiangco yesterday expressed optimism that the NBOC will be able to proclaim the 12 winning senators tomorrow (Tuesday), and likewise do a partial proclamation of winning party-list groups.
In a press conference, Laudiangco said: “(That is) our optimistic projection. It is still within our timeline of ‘early next week’.”
“We are on track with our timeline. That is really our projection. Tuesday is still ‘early next week’,” he insisted.
The poll official said there is also the possibility that leading vote getters for party-list groups may also be proclaimed tomorrow.
This, he said, is once the statistical analysis proves their standings will no longer be affected by the remaining uncanvassed votes.
“We may be able to do partial proclamation based on the total votes that we have right now,” he said.
“At the bottom part of the 63 seats, they are tightly bunched. So, if we have a partial proclamation, it would be the top tier or those on top,” added Laudiangco.
PPCRV
Church-based poll watchdog Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV) said over 40,000 election returns out of the more than 50,000 physical ERs have been encoded as of Sunday afternoon.
Data provided by the PPCRV Command Center at the University of Sto. Tomas showed that as of 5p.m. of Sunday, 40,521 physical ERs were encoded by its volunteers out of the 54,931 it has received.
PPCRV is a partner of the Comelec in monitoring the May 9 elections, so they get the 4th copy of transmitted election returns from clustered precincts.
Of the encoded physical ERs, PPCRV said 39,882 “were encoded and matched with transmitted ERs.”
It also said that 34 ERs “were not yet compared with transmitted ERs” while 308 are for “revalidation.”
On Saturday, the PPCRV reported a 1.6 percent mismatch between the printed election returns and those sent to the Comelec’s transparency server.
Lawyer Vann Dela Cruz, the PPCRV spokesperson said they found the mismatches in 240 ERs and that they will have to review them.
But he stressed that the matching rate remained at 98.39 percent and the 1.61-percent mismatch would likely not affect the results of the contests in the national level.
Likewise, the PPCRV said it has already received 60,848 election returns out of the 107,785, which constitutes 56.45 percent of the total ERs in the May 9 elections.
Of the 60,848 ERs, 38,770 came from Northern and Southern Luzon; 10,033 from the National Capital Region; 9,169 from the Visayas and 2,876 from Mindanao.
The PPCRV said it has yet to receive any ERs from abroad as of 10:30 a.m. Sunday.
As of May 13, the PPCRV said almost half of ERs delivered to its command center have a match rate of 98.39 percent versus the electronically transmitted results from the transparency server of the Comelec.
The high match rate means that Marcos Jr. and presidential daughter Sara Duterte-Carpio also maintain their leads at the partial manual audit of the election returns over their closest rival, Vice President Leni Robredo and Sen. Francis Pangilinan.
In a related development, the PPCRV said it will cut down to 12 hours, from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. its operations due to “logistics,” and use the university’s arena until May 20 for the manual audit of election returns.
The PPCRV has been working round-the clock at its UST command center for almost a week now.
SENATE
The Senate Public Relations and Information Bureau yesterday said that as of 7:10 a.m. Sunday, it has already received 117 of the 173 ballot boxes, or 67.63 percent, which contain the COCs and ERs for the presidential and vice-presidential races from various parts of the country and abroad.
Election officers during the weekend handed over to the Senate the COCs from Romblon, Pampanga, Samar, Davao Occidental, Zamboanga Sibugay, Camarines Sur, Northern Samar, Cebu City, Zamboanga del Norte, Negros Oriental, Davao del Sur, Davao de Oro, Davao Oriental, Maguindanao, Misamis Occidental, Bulacan, Basilan, South Cotabato, Iloilo, Caloocan City, and Palawan.
The Senate has also received COCs from votes cast by Persons Deprived of Liberty (PDLs).
Likewise, the chamber accepted COCs from Taiwan, Qatar, Bahrain, Singapore, London, Thailand and Canada, for transmittal to the House of Representatives later on.
The two chambers of Congress are expected to convene in a joint session on May 24 to canvass the votes for the 2022 presidential and vice-presidential elections. — With Ashzel Hachero and Raymond Africa
